While launching the country’s development roadmap, christened Vision 2030, President Mwai Kibaki paid glowing tribute to Prime Minister Raila Odinga on agreeing to take the country to a manageable way. The Head of State expressed confidence that the future of the Grand Coalition Government he is leading was bright.
It was excellent news for Kenyans. At the same function, Prime Minister Raila Odinga challenged the Grand Coalition Government ministers to end squabbles and forge ahead together so as to make Vision 2030 a reality. The prime minister also asked political leaders to demonstrate courageous leadership, best performance and uncompromising integrity to transform the country into a prosperous, democratic, equitable and modern nation.
Encouraging and statesmanship like statements and attitude on the part of both the president and prime minister. The cabinet ministers need to follow the example of their two principals and work together in their service deliveries and in making the Vision 2030 dream a reality. You don’t need a political scientist or student of politics to understand that the Grand Coalition Government is not a coalition of the willing.
It was the best option that could have come out of the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan-led mediation talks. The alternative would have been continued mayhem, anarchy and bloody bath and in a couple of weeks a collapsed country. A collapsed Kenya would have destroyed our beautiful nation. And as the President noted while paying tribute to his prime minister, “let us thank Raila for leading us to this right direction.
Let us thank him for making up his mind that we go a manageable way and I agreed.” Those involved in the GCG, not necessarily restricting to the two principals, will need not only to make it work but be seen to making it work. We all know that the two main factions that make up the GCG despise each other. There is no secret about that.
Aside from the existing loathe, there is a compelling need for the politicians on both side of the political divide to act like grown ups in public, and heed the prime minister’s call to demonstrate courageous leadership because they are indeed grown-ups and not school children. They are not secondary school children doing the best they can to outwit and outdo the other to impress a girl or a boy for that matter. Mwai KIbaki, Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Muysoka are respectively the president, prime minister and vice president of the country and not of their respective political organisations.
The GCG cabinet is for the entire country and not for Party of National Unity, or Orange Democratic Movement. This brings me to the recent ugly incident where the Water & Irrigation Minister Charity Ngilu showcased her lack of respect for Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka in an embarrassing situation.
The Kitui Central MP confronted the VP and as one newspaper put it ‘ Ngilu went at the VP in full glare of orderlies and other politicians and accused him of abusing State resources to campaign for PNU candidates.’ Were Ngilu’s actions compromising integrity? Was Wilson Airport the appropriate place for Ngilu to question the VP? The reality is that the long serving Mwingi North MP is the country’s VP and he deserve respect.
At least Ngilu should respect the office of the vice presidency as an institution even if she abhors the current occupier of the office. Madam Ngilu needs to come to her little senses and accept the political and factual reality that Kalonzo is Kenya’s VP and not Ukambani VP. It is the backward behaviors of ministers such as Ngilu that would bring this country down. Another problem is when Kenyans are being showered with media blitz of what certain ministers tends to do in their respective dockets. Take the case of the perennial land problem in the country.
Land issue is a major problem facing the country, not necessarily those sympathetic to ODM. The Lands Minister James Orengo just like his Nairobi Metropolitan Development counterpart Mutula Kilonzo – who was a subject of this column two weeks ago – need to do more work and less talking. Operating through the media is not the best way of executing ministerial duties.
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Leaders should stop using plane tragedy for mileage
e join fellow Kenyans in mourning the death of the two politicians, Roads Minister Kipklya Kones and the Homes Affairs Assistant Minister and first time Sotik MP Ms. Lorna Laboso. It is a great loss not only to their respective families, their constituents, Rift Valley or their political party, ODM, but the entire country.
Our prayers go out to their respective families and friends. While it was an excellent gesture by their parliamentary colleagues for the National Assembly to postpone business following the demise of its two members, politicians should not try to earn any political mileage at the expense of the demise of their colleagues.
The ill-fated Cessna 210E plane that crashed on a hill in forested Kojong’a in Nairegi-Enkare, Narok District, where the two politicians plus the pilot and a security officer perished has been declared a tragic accident. The plane had its required paperwork in order, and a record of having been inspected by the appropriate aviation authorities and was declared to be in a sound mechanical condition. The plane could not have been in a better condition than that.
As the Swahili saying goes, ‘Ajali haikimbiliki’. The pilot might have had experience in in-flight-hours but was perhaps not familiar with the area and the terrain he was flying. The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCA) does not need to be told by any one to conduct thorough investigations on this crash. Conducting thorough investigations in any air crash is the standard procedure.
The calls by some little known MPs for setting up of a commission to investigate the aviation industry is to say the very least a cheap publicity seeking stunt. Nothing more. These publicity seeking lawmakers want the licensing of operators to be regulated to ensure they maintained high safety records. It is as if it is not the case currently. The MPs went on to call for the upgrading of airstrips, runways and other emergency facilities. Talk is cheap, unless these MPs do not know what they are talking about because upgrading of all airstrips and runways is not possible.
Money is needed to do so. And in addition some of the airstrips are not being used on regular basis. Similar small Cessna planes such as this one are privately owned in the US, a country with the most stringent of any regulations and they crash regularly. I am not saying because it is the case in the US then it should be okay in Kenya. What happened at Kojong’a was just an accident and it should be investigated not because Kones and Laboso were the victims but because like any other air crash with loss of lives it needs to be investigated.
omarahmedali@gmail.com
Updated on: Sunday, June 15, 2008 Story by: OMAR ALI
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